eyebrow in mock surprise, hugging the boy hard to her ample poncho. The boy whimpered under his breath and the Major hoped he was being comforted rather than suffocated. The Major was not about to argue with Alice. “Why aren’t you on the bus, Thomas?” she asked, and stroked his hair.
“I’m so very sorry, young man,” said the Major. “I had no intention of frightening you.”
“I didn’t know you’d be here, Major,” said Alice. She looked worried.
“You mean shooting?” asked the Major. “I expect you don’t approve?” Alice said nothing. She just frowned as if thinking something through.
“What are you doing here?” asked the Major. “Are you chaperoning the children?”
“Not really,” said Alice, with an obvious vagueness. “That is to say, I had better get Thomas back to Matron right away.”
There was a further rustling in the hedge and Lord Dagenham and the keeper popped out.
“What the hell was all the racket?” asked Dagenham.
“The Major here frightened Thomas with his guns,” said Alice. “But it’s all right now—we’ve made friends, haven’t we, Thomas?” The boy peeked at the Major from under Alice’s arm and stuck out his tongue.
“They were all supposed to be on the bus ten minutes ago,” said Dagenham. “My guests are arriving now.”
“No harm done,” offered the Major.
“I’m sure it’s not as easy as all that,” said Alice, drawing herself up. “The children are all understandably upset this morning.”
“Good God, I’m giving them a trip to the bowling alley and an ice cream party on the pier,” said Dagenham. “What on earth do they have to be upset about?” Alice narrowed her eyes in a way the Major recognized as being dangerous.
“They know about the ducks,” she whispered, leading the boy away. He went with her but the whimpering started again. “They’re young, but they’re not stupid, you know,” she added in a louder voice.
“There’ll be duck soup for dinner,” said Dagenham under his breath. Alice gave him a look of pure poison as she and the boy disappeared through the hedge again. “Thank God it was only you, Major. Could have been rather embarrassing otherwise.”
“Glad to have headed them off, then,” said the Major, deciding to take Dagenham’s remark as a compliment.
“Thought it might be protesters from the damn ‘Save Our Village’ picket line, down the road,” said Dagenham. “Height of bad manners, throwing themselves in front of my guests’ cars like that. I was afraid they were infiltrating the grounds.”
“I hope no one is getting hurt,” said the Major.
“Oh, no, quite a solid front grill on those limousines,” said Dagenham. “Hardly a scratch.”
“Glad to hear it,” said the Major absently as he worried about whether Alice had been “infiltrating” and what else she might be up to.
“Shall we get along up to the house?” said Dagenham. “I’m hoping Morris’s wife has it all aired out by now.” The gamekeeper, Morris, nodded his head.
“We started opening windows about five A.M.,” he said. “Matron weren’t too pleased but I told her, no one was never ‘armed by a bit of fresh air.”
As they strode up toward the house, Dagenham added, “I had no idea that fee-paying pupils would smell bad. I really thought the school would be preferable to a nursing home, but I was wrong.” He sighed and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “At least with the old dears you can keep them all sedated and no one cares. The kids are so awake. That art teacher is the worst. She encourages them. Always sticking up their pictures in the hallways. Sticky tape and drawing-pin holes all over the plaster. I told the Matron they ought to be learning something useful like Greek or Latin. I don’t care if they’re only five or six, it’s never too early.” He paused and straightened his shoulders to take a deep breath of chill morning air. The Major felt queasy, thinking that he ought to say something in Alice’s defense—at least to let it be known that she was a friend and neighbor. However, he could not think how to do this without offending Lord Dagenham. So he said nothing.
As the three men emerged into the courtyard of the mellow stone Georgian manor house, the Major realized he had obtained his wish. There was a small group of men, drinking coffee and munching on plates of food, and the last of the luxury cars were pulling in at the driveway just in time to see him arriving with both the keeper and the master of the house. The moment would have been perfect, but for two incongruities. One was the old green bus pulling away through the same gates, the windows filled with the glass-squashed faces of small, angry children. Alice Pierce strode along behind them, waving as she went. The other was the sight of Roger, emerging from someone’s car dressed in a stiff new shooting jacket with a small tag still swinging from the hem. Roger did not appear to see his own father but busied himself greeting a second car full of guests. The Major gratefully decided not to see Roger, either; he had a vague hope that in the next half hour Roger’s coat and moleskin breeches might at least develop a few respectable creases around the elbows and knees.
“Good morning, Major. You will step in and get a cup of tea and a bacon roll before we start, won’t you?” The Major found Dagenham’s niece at his elbow, looking slightly anxious. “I’m afraid I rather overdid the light breakfast.” She pulled him into the lofty entrance hall, where a fire burning in the white marble fireplace could only lay an illusion of heat over the cold that rose from the black-and-white stone floor and traveled unimpeded in and out of the old thin panes of the vast windows. The room was empty of furniture save two immense carved wooden chairs, too heavy, or maybe just too tastelessly overwrought, to bother removing.
A buffet table to one side held a tray, which overflowed with pyramids of bacon rolls. A large oval platter of sausages and a basket of tumescent American-style muffins rounded out the “light” fare. A huge tea samovar and several thermos jugs of coffee were arrayed as if waiting a crowd several times the size of the gathering party, which looked to number about twenty in all. The smell of damp tweed mingled with the not quite vanished smells of institutional cabbage and bleach. “My uncle seems to think it’s a bit lavish, given that there’ll be a full breakfast after the shooting,” said Gertrude.
“They seem to be tucking in,” said the Major. Indeed, the remaining London bankers were filling up their plates as if they had not eaten in recent days. The Major wondered how they intended to swing a heavy gun barrel on such a full stomach; he accepted only a cup of tea and the smallest bacon roll he could find. As he savored his roll, a cream-colored Bentley pulled up at the open door and disgorged Ferguson, the American.
The Major ceased to chew as he took in the sight of Ferguson shaking hands with some people on the steps. The American was dressed in a shooting jacket of a tartan with which the Major was unfamiliar. Blinding puce, crossed with lines of green and orange, the wool fabric itself was of a thickness more akin to an army blanket than to single tweed. With this the American wore reddish breeches and cream stockings tucked into shiny new boots. He wore a flat shooting cap in too bright a green and a yellow cravat tucked into a cream silk shirt. He resembled a circus barker, thought the Major, or a down-at-heels actor playing a country squire in a summer stock revival of an Oscar Wilde play. He was shadowed by a pale young chap in impeccably rumpled clothes but overly shiny boots who wore a fedora instead of a cap. There was a momentary hush as they swept into the room; even the bankers paused in their foraging to stare. Ferguson took off his cap and gave a general wave.
“Good morning, all,” he said. He spotted Dagenham and shook the cap at him like a dog showing off with a rabbit. “I say, Double D, I hope that wasn’t our ducks I just saw taking off over the Downs toward France?” There was a general murmur of laughter around the room as the assembled men seemed to make a group decision to ignore Ferguson’s outlandish getup. There was a palpable easing of tension and a deliberate turning away, back into small groups of conversation. Dagenham was slightly slower than the rest to wipe the look of astonishment from his face as he shook Ferguson’s hand and was loudly introduced to the young associate, a Mr. Sterling. The Major took this to be a sign that good breeding still ran in Lord Dagenham’s veins.
“So how d’you like the new duds?” Ferguson gave a half turn to allow a better view of his outfit. “I’m reviving the old family tartan.”
“Very sporting,” said Dagenham. He had the grace to look a little sick.
“I know it’s a bit much for a day of blasting duck in the south, but I wanted to check out the feel. I’m thinking of starting a whole line of technical shooting clothes.” He raised his arms to show stretchy green side panels that resembled a medical corset; the Major swallowed his tea the wrong way and began to choke.
“Ah, there’s the Major,” said Ferguson, taking two large strides and sticking out his hand. The Major was
